This letter is written in response to Robyn Marquis’ editorial comment featured in The Polytechnic on April 4. Her accusations regarding the severity of police response are off-base and an underestimation of the danger of the situation.

If there had been a shooter in the building, the reaction of the SWAT teams was exactly as it should have been. It makes me feel safer that they are doing what they were trained to do in the event of a potential assailant in the building. At that point in time, it was suspected that there was a killer loose in the building, potentially with a loaded weapon. To respond with any less authority would have been irresponsible and of danger to the student population. It would have been impossible to announce to the students that there was a potential killer in the building, because that would have caused pandemonium and would have made the assailant’s escape that much easier.

Now that we know there wasn’t a killer, these claims might have been justified, but with the information available at the time, the actions of the SWAT team were completely appropriate, and they acted in the best interest of the Rensselaer community. When there is a potential killer loose in a building with whereabouts unknown, there is no way to know if that person is hiding in a classroom, or even holding a group of people hostage. The SWAT team acting in the fashion that it did would have given it the option to neutralize any threat with maximum regards to student safety. In a situation with such gravity, the safety of everyone involved is of paramount importance, not the feelings of those involved.

Andrew Davies, MECL ’07

Timothy Baran, CSYS ’07

Jon Hatlee, CIVL ’07